


Sollux: take iit ea2y

by cryogenia



Series: Colonystuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/M, It Was All Very Multicultural, M/M, Multi, No shame november, Pale Porn, Pale Prostitution, and self-care, colonystuck au, contains explicit scenes of massage not suitable for trolls under eight sweeps, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 16:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8585692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogenia/pseuds/cryogenia
Summary: In an attempt to be more multicultural (and show off for his would-be kismesis), Sollux reluctantly agrees to try some good old fashioned Earth entertainment.
He probably should have read the fine print.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> > Be the author  
> Your name is CRYOGENIA, and it is the ship week for a major Sollux pairing that you enjoy. Naturally, you wrote 10k of rare-pair SOLTAV instead. 
> 
> You would also like to THANK inkyopolis and masswisteria for their excellent talent for BETA READING.
> 
> > Be the reader  
> Enjoy.

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] **began pestering** twinArmageddons [TA]  at 10:28 --  
TG: heyyy   
TG: heyheyhey solcap  
TG: solo cup  
TG: yellow solo cup  
TG: wat are u up two?  
TG: workin on leet hax?  
TG: the leetest of hax?  
TG: two devsatating 4 the eyes of man?   
TG: come on i made two twos for u  
TG: *now theres four   
TG: oops   
TA: iif you have two a2k the an2wer iis ye2.  
TA: iin the iimmortal word2 of your human 2lampoet del the funky homo2apiien ii’m goiing to devii2e a viiru2. two bring diire 2traiit2 two your enviironment2.  
TG: aw yiss   
TG: crushing corporations with a mild touch  
TG: crash the whole computer system n revert you to papyrus  
TA: ye2.   
TA: the entiire crocker exchange wiill go dark. palmhu2k2 and hu2ktop2 wiill be 2o many wiiggler con2tructiion block2. human 2acriifiice, clown2 and fi2h liiviing twogether, ma22 hy2teriia.  
TA: no more endle22 wall2 of piink giiviing me headache2 when ii ALREADY HAVE A HEADACHE FUCK!!  
TG: aw dont be liek that   
TG: *like  
TG: if we take down the internets how will u stay inside all day   
TG: u might have go out and experience   
TG: ~nature~  
TG: lol  
TA: ok 2hiit you got me there.  
TG: woo woo woo ten points to gryffinpuff  
TG: anyway   
TG: i got a surprise for you  
TG: guess what   
TA: [what](https://66.media.tumblr.com/6e5903482d2a187fe9d1f2d45e4a1597/tumblr_of4instKxg1rft6jgo1_500.png)  
TG: lol like im gonna click that  
TA: ehehehe ii had two try.   
TG: lol i feel you  
TG: john finally got wise to tha [reverse rickroll](http://are-you-painful.tumblr.com/post/153204697733/i-love-the-classics) :(    
TA: ii’m not cliickiing that eiither.  
TG: see you gots to try  
TG: for ur honor!!   
TA: yeah.  
TG: ok ok one more time   
TG: *drumroll*  
TG: GUESS WHAT     
TA: cluckbea2t butt.  
TG: haha nice   
TG: but nah  
TG: were going out!!   
TA: no.  
TG: were going out *twonight*  
TA: FUCK no.  
TG: i already made tha reservations  
TG: cmon solcap even u gotta come up 4 air sometimes  
TA: holy 2hiit lalonde diid iit ever occur two you that 2ome 2peciie2 developed advanced ciiviiliizatiion 2o we wouldn’t have two iinteract wiith each other. why do you thiink we have piizza drone2?  
TG: i never said u had to talk to people lol   
TA: oh.   
TA: eheheh that’2 okay then.   
TG: on my honor as a citizen of the earth  
TG: we will go to this spa and we will rage   
TG: quietly   
TG: and individually  
TG: like two zen trees in a zen forest  
TG: and when we fall we will make no sound  
TG: except to each other because we’re still observers    
TG: and because soundwaves still propagate whether or not trees can perceive them  
TG: because vibration  
TG: okay that got away from me but anyway  
TA: well ii gue22 that doe2n’t 2ound two 2hiitty.  
TA: a2 long a2 ii don’t have two 2iit wiith 2tranger2 or talk wiith 2tranger2 or giive a 2hiit about anythiing that’2 goiing on.     
TG: haha dont worry i got you covered  
TG: you stress too much solcap    
TG: i think u need to relax  
TG: *wonk*  
\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] **ceased pestering** twinArmageddons [TA]  at 10:51 --


	2. Chapter 2

Human waitorturing blocks are notoriously stupid and bad, but the stupidest part is how they masquerade as welcoming. Businesses usher you in through discrete wooden doors and there’s attendants on duty (smiling), photos on the wall (also smiling), maybe even a big fat purrbeast on a counter (those don’t smile, thank fuck). They invite you to come in, have some tea, take a seat in an uncomfortably ergonomic chair. And before you know it you’re surrounded by a legion of squishy aliens, all waiting patiently for whatever-it-is and flashing their bizarre, flat teeth. 

Thankfully it’s early in the night, which sends diurnal creatures scurrying to hive. This particular block is largely empty, save for the recepticutioner standing guard at their desk, a peach woman browsing a magazine, and of course, RX in the corner. She waved at you the whole time you were checking in so you couldn’t pretend you were in the wrong place. And so, your fate was sealed. You have no choice but to roost on this stool carved from a tree stump, like the planet’s ugliest featherbeast. 

You shift back and forth on your awkward seat, trying to find a position that doesn’t cut off circulation in your bony legs. RX is fiddling with a memo on her palmhusk. Fucking humans. The ambiance here is human-calm, with walls the color of a low-end cerulean. Like someone’s bled a Serket grub and hung it out to dry a few weeks. A Crocker-brand speaker lurks in one corner, disguised for some reason in an arrangement of stones. It’s belting a rhythmic blend of rolling waves and whale song. Not at all ominous for a land dweller sitting quietly, minding his own business.

You lean into RX.

“Do humans really think this shit is relaxing?” 

RX looks up from her internet argument. 

“I guess?” She bares a stupid number of her own brilliant, perfectly-aligned teeth. “It’s all about the hippy-dippy, Solcap. Got to expand your mind.”

“That’s  _ seadweller _ music,” you complain. 

“Engh, it’s not that bad. Totes generic.”

You snort. Typical. One of the best full hiveframe developers you’ve ever met and she still doesn’t have the social chops Gog gave a musclebeast. You know you’re not exactly much better -- like you can keep track if russet is higher than rust this week, it’s all the same when you’re bottom of the pile. At least you know better than to mess with fish. 

Really, it’s a cultist’s miracle they’re not crawling all over. Probably would be, if this planet were better developed. It’s been colonized long enough to technically be civilized, but the aliens here are so soft and weak. You come to Earth for its mild oceans and cool sun, not cause you want excitement. Maybe if Her Imperiousness visited more often there’d be more developers angling their way in, but She likes to annex worlds and forget them for sweeps. If she’d slow her roll for two seconds, maybe you’d have a decent grubburger chain anywhere in this stuipd city.

Although  _ you’d _ have to skip planet again, so it’s just as well.  

You pick up a pamphlet sitting on the next chair and flip through two pages of glossy illustration. It features more vacantly smiling humans of the thin, peach subspecies. (Or computer constructs?  You’ve never seen ones this skinny and blemishless in real life.) The menu lists a number of services in English, which you should be familiar with. Yet, you’re not. Half the words don’t make sense in conjunction with each other, nor the -- hopy shiz -- shockingly explicit photos they’re using.

‘ _ Crowning Glory _ ’. A yellow-haired human, resplendent on a padded platform, is swaddled in a fluffy white robe. Nameless hands are curled around their face, stroking gently just beneath their jawline. The expression on their face is slack in the deepest throes of pacification. 

A stone the size of your fist settles in your digestive sac. You didn’t maybe ask RX a lot of questions when she made these plans. Maybe you should have.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” you try to whisper. You fail. The tips of your horns feel like they’re glowing. 

RX beams.

“I got us the ‘Road to Nirvana’,” she says. “It’s like...we get a massage an’ then they do your hair?  Or your nails. I forget.”

She grabs the menu and starts flipping through the pages. You are very pointedly not flipping out.

“It’s not a grooming parlor?” you say faintly. 

“Huh?  Oh, sort of.” She waves a hand. “They do blowouts but they don’t cut or anything. And nails!  Yeah, we get the ‘nail treatment with nourishing seaweed formula, to cherish your hands and feet’. Lol?”

Grubshitting fuck, she just said ‘lol’ out loud. And now she’s smirking, like she dares you to swear about it in this highblood place. RX puts you up to shit all the time, she’s taken you to fancy restaurants. And human grooming parlors, and strip clubs, and everything in between. The flush club where DK works has teeny platforms where you can dance if you’re not made of social awkwardness and elbows. She always challenges you to have fun, to dance, to do stupid things outside the internet. 

You are so pitch for this girl it’s ridiculous.

“Rolling-on-the-floor-laughing-my-horns-off,” you toss right back at her, as deadly serious as you can muster. She cackles like a spotted barkbeast. It leaves you an attack of opportunity to Troogle some words from this ‘Journey to Nirvana’ on your palmhusk. Such as, what the fuck a nirvana is.

‘ _ Nirvana _ ’ turns out to be a religion where the cultists wear ugly flannel. ‘ _ Swedish massage _ ’ is described as massage from some place called Sweden, which sounds fake. It’s also the single least helpful definition, so you click to human YouTube to see what that actually means. Which is. Uh. You are a master of viewing porn in public, but even your ragged ears twitch. This is exactly what you were afraid of.

“RX,  _ I have a moirail _ ,” you hiss at her. 

“I know!  This is just bff time,” she promises. “No monorail.”

“Moirail,” you growl with a little more force. Normally you’d be all over that pitch-tease. But nubslurping hell, humans are such mixed-signal disasters. They make everything 50% paler than it needs to be, except for actual pacification. Half the time, they turn  _ that  _ sexual. You glance back at the video, considering. Maybe this starts pale and moves concupiscent?  They’re doing it on a platform. Humans do flush stuff on platforms. 

Because…you’re not gonna lie. It looks good. It looks so fucking good. One of the humans is spread out face down under a snuggleplane, while the other rubs their naked back in steady circles. The strokes are so strong you can see soft skin depress, the way slick lotion glistens in their wake. It looks so fucking filthy. It looks fucking beautiful. 

It looks like you are going to throw sparks  if you don’t stop watching  _ right the fuck now _ , get it together you worthless piece of trash!

You close your ganderbulbs tight and breathe in two, breathe out two, through the pressure. You’re still trying to form coherent thoughts when something heavy clumps its way toward you. You crack one look stub open to a solid wall of flesh. 

“Uh, Sollux Captor?”

The most massive brownblood you have ever seen is looming a respectful three paces away, wringing hands the size of thermal mitts. You have no idea how he even squeezed into that tiny ochre uniform. His shoulders alone look ready to flex it off. 

Well, that and his horns are incredible. They jut out to each side like a proud Texas hoofbeast, thick as your wrist at the base. Maybe your entire fist. You imagine he has to tilt his head just to get through doors.

You are suddenly aware he is politely waiting while you stare at his horns, and sit up so suddenly your posture pole creaks. 

“Yeth!?” 

And there’s the ever-attractive lisp, because of course you’re just enough on edge to make your first impression with spittle. Fuck. your. entire. life. sideways. 

The brown-blood tips his head apologetically, flashing a submissive glimpse of his throat.

“My name is Tavros,” he offers. No binomen to indicate lineage, which is either intriguing or annoying depending on how much you want to Troogle him.

“Sorry, we’re a little behind?  If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll get the room cleaned up.”

“Okay?” you say after an awkward pause where he appears to be waiting for input. Everything the guy says sounds kind of like a question. Which is strange, because he’s higher than you. You think. Fucking stupid blood based castes.

“I’ll make sure you get your full ninety minutes,” Tavros promises. 

“Okay,” you say again, because you are an unoriginal fuckwit and also you don’t trust your teeth with ‘sure’. You’re still too gobsmacked by the length and breadth of just generally who he is a troll. And those shoulders. 

“Great!  Uh, be back in two shakes,” Tavros says, which is one of those dumb human expressions that doesn’t mean a thing but is obnoxiously endearing anyway, on account of the ‘two’. Fuckdammit. 

RX jabs you in the side and it takes all you have not to light up like a festive Sufferer’s Effigy.

“Two shakes of dat ass?” she whispers as Tavros shuffles away. You hate her. Your ganderbulbs are now drawn to dat ass.

“10 to the 10th,” you agree. He’s got a plush little spherical rump, highlighted by a band of metal just beneath it. Ambulatory exoskeleton. He’s got an assistive exoskeleton, and if that’s not another one of your shameful-probably-offensive turnons you don’t know what is.

It’s officially time to flip the fuck out.

  
\--  twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling  apocalypseArisen [AA] \--   
TA: wow FUCK okay.   
TA: ii hate human2 for all the u2ual rea2ons but al2o becau2e ii thiink my piitch cru2h ju2t took me two a 2oliiciitatiion parlor.   
AA: 0_0   
AA: well that is certainly a devel0pment on the r0xy fr0nt   
TA: ii’2 not a development, iit’2 a fuckiing dii2a2ter.   
TA: they have a troll here and he’2 2uppo2ed two be my therapii2t??   
AA: 0_0_0_0   
TA: ii 2wear ii diidn’t know. you have two beliieve me.

”Roxy Lalonde?”

And to make things worse, of course Lalonde is going to abandon you. RX hops off her wedge of tree and sidles toward the smiling human who called her name. Because of course she gets the petite, reasonable attendant in a petite, hemoanonymous uniform,  _ because they are both humans and will not have to rip anyone’s horns off for being a cheating piece of shit! _

TA: ii hate her 2o much riight now you have no iidea.    
TA: platoniically. and iinten2ely.   
AA: its 0k   
AA: d0 y0u need me t0 auspistice

You may only have one bloodpusher, but it seizes twofold in your chest.

TA: NO   
TA: fuck no AA plea2e you can’t fliip on me   
TA: ii need you iin my diiamond ii can’t do thii2 wiithout you ii’m already bugwiinged crazy    
AA: s0llux   
TA: i’ll even stop being so fucking annoying see who even gives a shit about my fixatiion   
TA: *fixation   
TA: not me   
AA: i kn0w this is n0t as effective at a distance but   
AA: SH00SH

You take a deep breath and try not to level the ceiling.

“Sollux Captor?” 

‘Tavros’ is calling you again from an opposing doorway and, oh joy, you were right. He does have to angle his horns to fit through the sides. 

“We’re uh, ready for you?”

You follow him on shaky legs, clutching your rapidly vibrating palmhusk. If you have to be an embarrassment, you might as well do it in private. 

Tavros guides you down a narrow blue corridor, past a series of doors all labeled with ‘occupied’. His mechanical struts move at a careful but steady lope. You find yourself having to work to keep up, which is the crowning cherry on this whole shit sundae. By the time you arrive at a double-wide chitinous portal, a pulse of pain is wiggling its way through your temple, because it’s not like pain stopped being a thing. The whole red side of your face has been throbbing on and off from fangs to horns for at least two nights now. Raising your blood pressure sure doesn’t help.

AA: SH00SH   
AA: SH00SH   
AA: SH00000000SH

You look up from your palmhusk to Tavros gently angling open the door, and for a moment your nervousness fails you. Instead of the bright lights you’re accustomed to in human blocks, this place is dim and cool, lit by glowing grubshells peppered across the ceiling. The walls and floor are also painted a comforting, hemoanonymous grey; none of that seadweller death-by-ocean hoofbeastshit. The only furniture is a small table with two padded swiveling chairs and a strange mechanically supported platform that neither looks like a traditional concupiscent couch nor a regular human ‘bed’. It has a strange padded loop jutting out from one end and a mounded pillow laying crossways at the other.

Tavros fiddles with a thermal nutrition device inexplicably sitting on the table, apparently adjusting a temperature gauge. He dips two fingers into the open vat to swish around some kind of liquid - water?  Or sopor?  Jegus, even his claws have been filed to short, non-threatening crescents. You’re so not equipped to handle this.

“I have a moirail!” you blurt out like the wretched idiot you are. 

Tavros freezes like a half-squished game grub.

“Um, okay?”

“Okay!?” You’re aware your voice is somewhere in the KK register, but - fuck. Your palmhusk is still buzzing like a displaced swarm and he’s a troll, for Gog’s sake. He should know what it means to be defenseless in a quiet block together. 

Stop. Reel it in. 

“My kismesis set me up for this.” You want to zap yourself the second you say it. Great, now you’re blaming RX for your own fuckwitted decisions. You haven’t even asked her yet, you bifurcated wonder. “She’s human, she didn’t know. It’s not her fault.”

Tavros draws his prongs back slowly and dries them off on the front of his uniform. He has this look on his face, like he’s both nervous and - what?  Scared of you?   _ For _ you?  It reminds you of the crease in the dip between AA’s brows. Maybe you could flip this ashen?  

Maybe you are a desperate bag of trash?

“Well, not to make assumptions about what you know, or may not know,” Tavros draws himself up to his full, admittedly impressive height. His voice is so, so deep. “But there’s a lot of misconceptions about stressassination, like, in the world in general.”

He pats the air wildly, like his huge nubs are aching for something to pap. You shift awkwardly against the wall and he seems to catch himself. 

“Anyway, it’s a professional relationship? Like, medicullers prescribe it. For pain relief?  It’s similar to butler massage.”

You actually laugh at that. 

“She’s not a highblood,” you clarify. “She’s a lambda-class telekinetic.” 

“Oh, uh.”

“Yeah, she could level this place.”

“Mm.”

He’s still  _ looking _ at you though, like he wants do...something. Maybe reach out and touch?  It should piss you off but somehow you’re just tired. You wonder how pathetic you must look for him to give a damn. 

“She’s off planet?” Tavros asks, not unkindly. 

“Yeah.” You look down at your black and white shoes. You don’t want to be talking about this. Your whole face fucking aches into your crooked teeth and your palmhusk is shaking like a punctured can of Dew. AA’s notification light bleeds between your fingers, a furious firestorm of crimson. 

“That’s her,” you tell Tavros. “Can I - I need to take this. Fuck.”

You move to step out but Tavros is already at the door. He moves so gracefully around the conciliatory platform. 

“I’ll give you some privacy,” he says, and angles his way out of the block. 

AA: S   
AA: H   
AA: 0   
AA: 0   
AA: S   
AA: H   
AA: S   
AA:  H   
AA:   0   
AA:    0   
AA:     S   
AA:      H   
AA:     S   
AA:    0   
AA:   0   
AA:  H   
AA: S   
AA:    
AA:  0000             0000    
AA: 00  00           00  00   
AA: 00  00           00  00   
AA: 00  00           00  00   
AA: 00  00           00  00   
AA:  0000  HHHSSSHHH  0000   
AA:    
AA:  [ humansfallingd0wn.gif ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwaJgz_CKmw)   
AA:  [ morehumansfallingd0wn.gif ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98LoiMZ59Jw)   
AA:  [ purrbeastvshumanwiggler.gif ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9sZ3gfPP58)   
TA: AA what the FUCK??   
AA: S0LLUX what the fuck   
AA: y0u werent answering my messages 0_0   
TA: ii wa2 dealiing wiith the ‘2tre22a22iinator’ FUCK.   
TA: he wanted two giive me a butler ma22age!   
TA: liike we’re some kiind of 2tuck up wader2 who go on pretentiiou2 cruii2e2 two 2how off how they’re 2o riich they don’t have two 2wiim even though they liive iin the fuckiing ocean.   
TA: and 2iip pretentiiou2 driink2 wiith mu2hed up leave2 whiile troll2 waiit on them prong and nub.   
TA: po22iibly the driink2 have tiiny umbrella2. the umbrella2 are pretentiiou2 two.      
AA: s0 y0u her0ically av0ided...a massage?   
AA: that y0ur kismesis paid f0r   
AA: that is t0day’s emergency   
AA: if i have divined c0rrectly   
TA: well when you put iit that way iit 2ound2 2tupiid!!!   
AA: because it is stupid   
TA: 2crew you, ii’m tryiing two be re2pectful and 2hiit.   
TA: i told hiim ii have a moiiraiil. ii’m not going two cheat on you.   
AA: 0f c0urse y0u’re n0t    
AA: y0u kn0w i c0uld sm00sh y0u with aster0ids 0_0_0_0    
TA: oh god.   
TA: AA ii really am 2orry.   
TA: aradia please   
AA: that was a j0ke   
AA: s0llux   
AA: hang 0n 

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA] \-- 

Her chumphandle goes offline and for a long, pusher-stopping moment, your pesterlog is just silent. You fucked up again, somehow, and she’s not even going to let you apologize. Then a blaze of crimson pops up over Trollian, announcing a long-distance ShoutStream, and you have a second pusher attack because now you  _ have _ to apologize.

AA’s face pops into the tiny call window, distorted by encoding and her shitty connection. Really her, not one of her drivebots. Her round cheeks are ashen and sticky with driveslime, and her wild mass of curls is a forest of seadweller vegetables, wavy tendrils floating in all directions. It looks like she’s drifting around in airlock.

She’s probably been splitting asteroids all night and she hasn’t even put down her EVA helmet, and she is still the best thing you’ve ever seen. You press your cheek to the auditory receptor and try to purr, even though you sound like a squeaky screen door.

“Sorry,” you tell her. 

AA tilts her camera to focus square on her face, her very red, red lips. You feel another swell of affection. She knows you suck at reading tone, so she makes sure you can see her expression with her words.

“I’m not angry,” she says. “I was concerned.”

“Sorry,” you say again. Sometimes it’s the only word you know. You always make everyone worry, with your stupid pan that never knows the right things to say. You’ve even pulled her off the line because you can’t get your shit together. 

“I’m okay,” you tell her. One of her thick eyebrows goes up.

“Really.”

You tap your largest horns, ignoring the jolt of pent-up static.

“Yeah. Cool as a cucumiform vegetable.”

“Sollux,” she warns. A few stress lights blink on her EVA suit. “If you are doing the thing where you are pretending to be low maintenance to avoid seeming high maintenance, you are aware that deception in and of itself makes you high maintenance?”

You wince at the entire idea of that sentence.

“AA, my pan hurts enough today.”

“Did you take your pills?”

And there it is, your least-favorite question, right up there with ‘did you set an alarm’ and ‘did you try going to sleep early’?  AA  _ knows  _ that, fuck, why would she ask that mess. 

“I didn’t fucking forget!  They don’t always work!” They don’t. It’s not like you can see a doctorturer. 

AA tosses her horns, visibly annoyed. You pinch yourself off-screen where she can’t see it. Trying  _ not _ to be a pain in the rump, right. Someday you’re going to crack that.

“I was just asking. I can see if they’ll give me something harder,” she says.

“You’ll get flagged.” 

AA rolls her ganderbulbs so hard they might float off. “Half the belt drops Rock Sugar for recreational purposes. They will not care what I requisition as long as I am present for shifts.”

“As long as you’re ‘stable’,” you echo back, not even half as bitter as you feel.

“Sollux.”

Something in your ugly face must get to her because she doesn’t chase it harder. Instead, she quietly fidgets with the zoom, until all you see is her soft cheeks and wild hair, and every contour of her face that you have been missing.

“Anyway. About this ‘stressassinator’.”

“It’s not ashen,” you warn her. Humans may have those clubs-for-hire ‘relationship counselors’ but fuck. A troll has to draw the line somewhere, and even you are too classy to take RX to that. 

“It was also your  _ spade’s _ idea.” Aradia shrugs. “Let me ask you this. Do you feel it would be cheating if someone in another quadrant had a butler, and they sent it to me to provide services?”

“Not -- no?” 

“Because I’ve had the offer,” AA says. “But if you feel that would be inappropriate, we would need to talk about it.”

You blink a few times to hold in the sparks. You’re starting to feel like you lost control of this conversation somewhere, but you’re not sure where. 

“The fuck?  What offer?” 

“One of the techs.” She waves a prong dismissively. “I do not know if I want to open that particular can of dirt noodles. But I do not see how that would be any different from your current predicament. Your kismesis dragged you into an embarrassing situation. It’s annoyed you into calling me. That seems very clearly pitch.”

“It’s pitch,” you confirm. Fuckdammit, is it ever. RX has given you so many pusher attacks this past hour alone that you will be culled if you ever go out without an explicit itinerary again. You are going to replace every mp3 she has with ten hour mixes of the  [ creepy pea video ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KFqEuI0qkY) .

AA curls her lip into a blunted snarl. 

“Then why is that a problem for our quadrant?  I do not have strong feelings about massage. I have  _ many _ feelings about you assuming what I think.”

“Well fuck me for trying to be considerate,” you hiss.

“‘Considerate’ is not deciding that I hate you every five seconds. Sollux, I am on shift! I thought you were melting down.”

It hits you right between your mismatched eyes. Does she think that you don’t trust her?  You do, oh god, of course you do. She’s the only one you do trust to see the miserable truth of what you are. You just can’t -- you can’t risk her.

If she did get tired of you, you don’t know what you would do.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her again. “I’m okay. I was overreacting.”

AA’s grimy hand reaches toward the screen like she’s going to pap you and you bop your palmhusk into your cheek. You are the worst moirail in the universe and you have no fucking shame. 

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “Don’t put words in my squawk blister.”

A deep voice crackles from the receiver in her helmet, rumbling that her ‘break’ is over. You haven’t even been talking for five fucking minutes. 

“I’m aware,” AA tells the blatherdevice. You know from her scowl that’s not the same as ‘I’ll comply’. You wince as she casually chucks her helmet to the far side of the airlock, propelling herself backward at the same time. 

“Oops,” she says.

“Nice,” you say, although you feel like shit. It’s your fucking fault she doesn’t get more pale allowance either. The records say you’re not high enough on the spectrum to experience rages; your psi and glowing eyes are little more than a fancy glowgrub trick. Good enough of a hacker to be valuable for colony infrastructure, but low aptitude in fleet-friendly countermeasures and decryption. 

Because in reality, you’re an  _ excellent _ hacker, and that’s the reason your skills are set sub-alpha. 

“I’m still working on the transfer,” you tell her. 

“I know,” she says, giving you a sharp look. Like you’re stupid enough to talk specifics while she’s at work. It’s not like it’s weird for moirails to take posts closer together. Just the part where one might be committing cull-worthy computer crime to make it happen.

“I’m just saying. I didn’t forget.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” AA says. She holds up her thumb and fore-prong in a forty-five degree L, one half of a cutesy diamond sign. You stick your tongue out, your own personal way of completing it.

A purple alert shrieks somewhere behind Aradia’s left horn and she curses like a cerulean. 

“Fiddlesticks!  Time’s up.”

You don’t even bother to hide the crackle between your horns this time.

“Are they seriously opening the fucking airlock on you!?”

“If you do not move it, you will lose it,” AA says solemnly. Her helmet is spiraling back into place, drawn by the glow of psi around her face. The video dissolves into a jumbled cacophony of spinning tubes and a spinning shot of AA’s faceplate, illuminated in a blaze of gold, before cutting out.

  
\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA] \--   
AA: s0rry i have t0 g0  
AA: i w0uld have taken a l0nger break but s0me0ne ~0rdered~ equius t0 get back t0 w0rk  
AA: s0 0f c0urse he thr0ws me under the pr0verbial f0ur-wheeled mass transp0rtation device and n0w the 0versearer is being ann0ying   
TA: iit’2 okay, ii diidn’t mean two be a paiin.   
AA: it is 0k  
AA: y0u are my pain  
TA: ii gue22 that’2 2weet. or creepy. depending on your poiint of viiew.  
AA: 0f c0urse  
AA: i may share y0ur b0dy with 0thers but y0ur pan bel0ngs t0 me 0_0  
TA: and now we’re back two creepy. good job.  
AA: 0_0  
AA: i d0 have s0me pale leave c0ming up  
AA: maybe we can meet 0n triune  
AA: i will tell y0u all ab0ut The Equius Situati0n  
AA: it is a capitals Situati0n  
TA: okay, well remember hiighblood2 are 2hiit iin quadrant2.  
AA: s0 are humans  
AA: but i d0nt see that st0pping y0u -_0  
AA: 0_-?  
AA: i will w0rk 0n that 0ne

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA] \-- 


	3. Chapter 3

You close out of Trollian and just stare at your palmhusk, flicking through your app roll with no purpose at all. The ache in your right temple is starting for your spine and you need -- a week of sleep, your migraine meds, a cocoon to die in. Something. AA doesn’t hate you, but she’s also mad that you thought she’d hate you. Which makes you worry she’s eventually going to hate you, but if you keep on that route you’re definitely going to explode.

The worst part is you’ve still got more than an hour to burn, and no charger to plug in your palmhusk. You could bounce, but that would be even worse. RX wouldn’t even be mad if you left, just ~disappointed~, and you wouldn’t do that to your kismesis. Almost-kismesis. Hornscraping hell, how are you even supposed to ask her out if you can’t get through one challenge?  Cause AA’s right, RX absolutely put you up to this. Whether or not it’s pitch to take you to a pale parlor, the least you can do is stick it out in the waitorturing block. Maybe if you turn the brightness down, your battery will hold and you won’t have to read any human magazines. 

Unfortunately, you don’t get very far on your walk of shame. You open the door and collide with a solid wall of Tavros, who is lurking just outside in true creepy butler fashion. Water sloshes onto you from the mug he’s carrying, because of course, you smack that with the door. Of-fucking-course.

“Sorry!” Tavros yelps. “I thought you um, might like something to drink.” He genuinely looks distressed, like  _ he’s _ a piece of shit because you’re a clumsy douchebag. 

“It’s cool,” you say faintly, even though it’s not.  _ Why are you being so fucking nice to me?  _ You want to snarl, but you aren’t stupid. You know the reason. RX is paying him through the cartilaginous nub to pretend like you’re not a disaster. You could at least act like you appreciate it.

You bite your lip and step back into the block, giving him space to follow you in. He gives you the mug, as if that makes this any less awkward.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” 

Tavros fidgets with a string on the front of his uniform, twirling it around and around a thick finger. He really does look like a butler, watching your every move.

“I’m…” ‘Okay’ isn’t the word, but you use it anyway. 

His eyes flick to your silent palmhusk.

“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble.” Like it’s even his fault that you can’t manage your quadrants. You made him feel like that, didn’t you? 

“I’m sorry for wasting your time,” you say. “I talked to my moirail. It was a misunderstanding.”

Tavros shakes his head. “Technically, it’s your time. I’d be here regardless, so.”

“So,” you echo, like the awkward squawkbeast you are.

“We still have time, if you wanted?” he says. “It’s your call.”

Exactly the last thing you actually wanted, another decision you can fuck up. You pinch the bridge of your cartiliginous nub, right above your glasses. 

“It’s just butler massage, right?  I don’t lay on your couch and talk about my lusus or whatever.”

Tavros’s ears flush a fascinating muddy-grey.

“That’s uh...we don’t do that here,” he says, a little sharply. “If that’s what you’re looking for, I would have to ask you to leave. Um.”

You actually laugh at that. Dammit, you hate it when you giggle-snort.

“Fuck no!  My lusus was a goddamn idiot. And my moirail would actually kill us.”

“Right.” Tavros nods. “I can stay away from pale trigger points, if that helps?”

“It would,” you say, relieved.  

Tavros gives you a tentative smile. His largest fangs poke out like blunt barkbeast teeth.

“You’re not the first client I’ve had with a moirail.”

“Well, I’ve never been to a ‘spa’ before so. Yeah.” 

‘ _ So, yeah? _ ’ Ughhh why. Maybe if you’d had this conversation in the first place, you could have been a suave and competent individual, instead of spazzing so bad AA had to deal with you. Is this what highbloods do all the time?  Go to a parlor and talk about Boundaries and negotiate service without deciding your spade’s fucking up your diamond?

(Probably not. Like highbloods give a shit about boundaries.)

Tavros takes a few steps forward, still keeping his chin up and back to show you his throat.

“It can be about pain relief,” he says in a low, soothing voice. “Can you tell me where you hurt?”

He’s so earnest. Like he just knows that you do, and he actually wants to do something about it. You consider lying just to get him back. But RX’s not around to be annoyed by your self-deprecating schtick, so why bother.

“Where don’t I hurt?” you snort. “Pan, mostly. I get headaches.”

And neckaches and strut aches and everything in between, but who’s counting. You’re a funhouse assortment of genes. It’s amazing your mutated ass is breathing at all.

“May I see?”

“I guess?” You plant your feet and brace yourself for prodding. You may not have seen a doctorturer in sweeps, but you kind of remember how it goes. 

Tavros stretches his hands out so slow, however. You can practically see the HUD pop up predicting his next movement. He comes in close and asks again if it’s okay for him to touch you. He’s so warm and muscular and steady. He is not going to hurt you at all.

“Knock yourself out,” you tell him, and you’re not shivery from looking up at him. You’re not.

Tavros’s fingers squeeze down on the tops of your shoulders, that stiff join between your neck and your body. Two stripes of pleasure (pain?) lick into your posture pole and you can’t help the pulse of static through your eyes. Tavros startles and immediately eases up.

“It’s okay,” you hiss. You tap your glasses, the silly human ‘retro’ panes. “I’m a burnout. ‘S harmless.”

Biggest lie of your life, but you’re good at delivering it. The fingers return to your neck and test a divot higher at the base of your spine. Which is great, because, fuck. It hurts but it’s also good to have something push against you. Like the corner of doorway, or a particularly firm chair. You’ve been known to shove yourself against things until your crooked vertebrae pop. 

“You’ve got a lot of tension in your shoulders,” Tavros says. He slips around behind you but keeps squeezing in light, efficient pulses, up along your neck and then over your spine. You are trying not to sway. “Do you spend a lot of time on a husktop?”

“I’m an apicultist."

“Mm,” Tavros says. “Do you ah, have any pain through the wrists?  Lower back?”

“I guess?  I don’t know, I don’t really notice it.”

His thick thumbs dig into two spots on either sides of your hips and the sudden pressure drives a spike all the way into your legs. It’s all you can do not to shoot sparks.

Tavros steps away and gives you a long, calculating look. 

“I think we can ah, do something about this,” he says. “We’ve got about sixty minutes.”

“Okay,” you say, a little huskier than usual. It’s hard to be nervous when his hands are so powerful like that. Fuck. His squeezes were like three seconds and they were still light years better than anything you have ever done to yourself. 

“I’d like to start you face down,” Tavros says. His voice is clearer now, gaining in strength. “If you would um, undress as much as you’re comfortable and lay down on the platform?”

That’s…kind of sudden, but okay. You tug at the hem of your t-shirt and Tavros yelps like a barkbeast.

“Uh, I’ll give you a minute!” 

He bolts for the door in a way that might be insulting, if it weren’t also funny to see him forget his horns. He chips off a sliver of paint on the door frame as he absconds.

“I’ll knock when I’m coming in. Okay?” 

He closes the door behind him, and the room seems to sag in on itself without his presence.

Left to your own devices you can be nervous again and you are struck once again with how damn  _ weird _ this is. Being naked is vaguely concupiscent and that’s sort of comforting because then this is absolutely not pale, but you also got the impression from the human video that you should also be concealed under snuggleplanes at all time. Whatever. You shuck off your shoes and shirt and jeans but leave your boxers on. They’re covered in miniature cartoon femurs, a present from AA. It’s a relief, somehow, to be wearing something of hers. 

The conciliatory platform seems more intimidating too, larger now that the stressassinator isn’t here for comparison. You’re not small for a Gemini-sub- _ Captor _ but it’s clear that everything here is sized for highbloods. You grit your fangs against the throbbing in your head and levitate the extra step onto the padded ‘bed’, wallowing like an oinkbeast to crawl between the sheets. Your entire backside still feels abruptly, terribly exposed. 

It’s okay. Focus. You’re lying on your stomach but your prongs are all present and accounted for by your sides. There aren’t any restrictacles here, not even guardrails to keep you on the table. If Tavros tries anything too funny you can literally tear him apart by the atom. You close your eyes and think again about the human porno, smooth hands on skin, rubbing down your aching spine. 

A timid knock breaks through the silence, one-two-three scratches like a baby purrbeast. 

“Come in,” you yell into the platform. 

You twist your head to the side so you can see Tavros coming. He lumbers in with the same tiny smile, one of his dopey fangs caught against his lower lip. He drags a rolling chair behind him, a tattered thing with an inexplicable emoji cow sticker pasted over a crack in the seat. Not exactly the picture of a helmsmechanic. You find yourself relaxing, just a little.

“Um. There’s a face cradle?  If you wouldn’t mind scooting forward. It’ll straighten out your neck.”

Oh. The padded loop hanging off the end of the table. You can’t see your ears, but you suspect they’re warm grey. At least you didn’t fuck up so catastrophically that you’re laying the wrong way around. You wiggle forward on your belly until you can stick your face in the hole, which feels both weirdly obscene and very, very relaxing. The twinge in your neck relaxes into a very pleasurable ache.

“Is that a good height?” 

Tavros’s chair rattles somewhere off to your left. 

“I guess?  I don’t fuckin’ know,” you admit.

“It should feel like it doesn’t hurt to hold your head up,” Tavros says softly. “It should feel good.”

You consider. “It’s good then.”

There is a soft click and the entire platform begins to lower, like you’re riding an elevator face-first. You are extremely proud of yourself for not jumping like a wiggler.

“Do you mind if I use a chair?” Tavros asks. “I’ll stand up when I have to, but it would be appreciated, ergonomically speaking.”

“I don’t give a shit.” That’s right, the gear on his legs. “What, do trolls actually say no?”

“Well um, I would answer but, historically speaking being honest with customers is not the best way to stay employed?”

You bark out a short, startled laugh. You can’t help it - you kind of like the guy. For all his wishy-washy bullshit, there’s something so comforting about him.

“Fuck don’t I know it,” you say. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks. Though I would prefer to stay conscious while I am working on you. Er.”

The edge of the snuggleplane peels back from your shoulders, exposing you all the way down your spine. You suck in a deep breath.

“Tell me if anything hurts,” Tavros says, suddenly serious. “I should know, but.” 

“I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance.”

“You shouldn’t need it, though,” he says with surprising strength. “If it hurts so bad it makes you want to tense, say, let me know? I don’t ever want anyone to hurt.”

Thick hands press over your shoulder blades and spread. It’s not heavy pressure, just a long, slow burn. Enough to let you know he’s there. You let out a startled gasp.

“Is that okay?”

“Yes?”

His fingers draw up into the center, back down toward the ribs and oh.

_ Oh. _

Normally, you don’t pay much attention to your body. You have been at war with this meatbag for nearly ten sweeps and it hasn’t won the battle yet. The more he pets though, the more you can’t help but  _ feel _ . Throbbing heat blossoms along your neck and sweeps down your back in long, luxurious strokes. It teases at the tense spots at your hips and the most you can manage is a vague hiss.

Tavros draws his hands away and it’s all you can do not to chirp like a lost grub. 

“Do you have any sopor allergies?” 

“No?”

The chair squeaks away for a pusher-breaking moment and you hear a gentle splashing noise. This time when he touches you there is heat and  _ slickness,  _ rippling heat like his prongs have melted into probing waves. He’s not even contacting you save the tips of his fingers and yet it feels like the platform, the snuggleplanes, the world itself, is giving you a big hug. 

What the fuck. What the everloving fuck. 

“There we go,” Tavros says in his soft, gentle voice. He rubs the slime in tight circles along your spine and it’s like he’s breathing life directly into your vertebrae. Your lower thorax is starting to go tight and you clamp down hard through your purrbox because you are not doing this, you are not that gross. 

“Um, it’s okay if you want to purr,” Tavros says, like he read your fucking mind. “I won’t take it personal.”

“Nah, I’m good,” you lie. 

There’s a spot toward the top of your hip that tingles when he presses and you squirm, belly pinched against the platform, as it blossoms into a line of pins-and-needles. Concentrate on that. It doesn’t hurt exactly, just tickles like something’s pricking beneath your skin.

“Are you left-pronged?” Tavros asks.

“Yes,” you admit reluctantly. You’ve wished for years you could be ambidextrous. You’ve dropped too many pizza rolls to believe that’s true. “Why?”

“You’re tighter on this side.” 

He draws his knuckles down the same arc and the needles suddenly become unbearable. You shudder and spark right off the tip of your fucking biggest horns, like a dumbass pupa who’s just discovered what they’re for. 

The pressure lifts immediately and Tavros switches to big, circular rubs over your ass and hips. 

“It’s fine,” you grunt. “Don’t worry about the light show.” 

“It’s okay. Tell me if this is too much?”

Like you’d even fucking know. His hands glide in toward your spine again and take your sanity with them. Tavros anchors your aching lower back with a single enormous hand and you chirp, startled.

“Breathe into my nubs,” he tells you. He sounds so steady and perfect and different from his nervous stammer before. “Relax.”

You have no clue how you’d even begin to do that, but it doesn’t matter. Heat pulsates through your back and something in your hip gives way in a gigantic shudder. Like the opposite of a spasm. You slump, dazed, into the platform.

“There you go,” Tavros croons. He pets his way to the crest of your rump and you shiver. “Good.”

You didn’t do anything to deserve him calling you good, you ought to say, but it feels so good to hear it. Praise does things to you that you can’t define and it’s hard to think past the warmth in your belly. It’s hard to think period. His hands are kneading steadily up your sides, twin points of radiant comfort. When they disappear there is a mild splash, and then there is even  _ more _ sensation. Thick, high-class sopor, like the fancy hotel kind. You chirp again, trembling.

Tavros rattles his chair around to the far side and draws your right arm out. He takes your upper strut in hand and captures your pitiful wrist. When he digs his thumb into the meat of your forearm you whimper. 

“Press against my hand,” he says, fanning his fingers out to meet yours. You do, and feel that same heat as the tightness in your palm releases.

He twists your arm into a series of positions, each time asking you to push a certain way. Each time praising you when you let go. You are starting to want so badly to purr again and you can’t. You can’t. You’ve never purred for anybody but AA and no matter how much she laughs at you, it’s special. 

(And embarrassing. Even you get tired of your nasally, asthmatic wheezing. If you have to do it in front of a stranger, forget the fucking fleet, you will helm yourself into the nearest star.)

Warm heaviness sinks into your limbs like a thick snuggleplane descending from above, but when you wiggle, there’s no fabric.

“Take a deep breath,” Tavros says, almost sternly. The building pit in the center of your digestive sac eases. 

He repeats the stretches with your other arm, flexing each of your curled fingers straight. You didn’t even know your palm hurt like that until he started working it. You didn’t realize your mouse hand was permanently cupped into that shape. 

Shoulders, back, the back of your neck. His fingers scritch into the wild thicket of your hair but stay respectfully away from the bases of your horns. You still feel tingles racing through your scalp anyway.

“Okay um, if you could turn over?”

You make a drugged noise. Moving feels impossible. It takes you two tries, and you can’t even lift your head. Your ugly mutant face drags out of the face cradle and lolls against the platform as he guides you to lay on your back. 

“Breathe,” Tavros tells you. His huge hands rubbing your forehead are so, so close to the pheromone glands on your face. You feel so good, you can’t even properly appreciate how shit you are for imagining those fingers lower. It’s so good.

“Breathe,” Tavros says again, and the imperative behind it knocks the last of your inhibitions free.

You breathe.

Time pulls out and loses all meaning, as warm and loose and happy as you are. The ceiling above pulses and dazzles with beautiful light. Tavros digs his blunt nails into the divots of your thoracic plate and you can’t help the little burble of sound that wells up.

“It’s okay,” he says. It is. He gently tips your head to the side and you melt into his great hands. He’s got you. You don’t have to hurt. He strokes tiny whorls of fire into the side of your neck and you chirp and chirp for more. 

Your lower thorax is drawing up tight and you can’t, you can’t - 

“It’s okay,” he rumbles back. “Let go.”

You close your eyes against the glowbugs on the ceiling and let your lower voicebox catch, singing your squeaky little song like you’re the proudest princess in the pile. Maybe you actually are. Tavros’s hands never falter, kneading out pain you didn’t even realize you were carrying.

“Sorry,” you slur, barely intelligible. His fingers are looping in circles right at the edge where your jaw connects to your neck and your pheromone glands ache. You want to mark him. He’s not your anything but he’s making you feel so good. The lights overhead is so bright it’s blinding even through your closed eyes.

Tavros clasps one of your thin hands in his again, trailing his strong fingers up to the join of your thoracic chest muscles. Everything tingles in his wake. How could even your nubs be this sensitive?  He draws circles over your flat rumblespheres and it makes you want to cry.

“Be easy,” he says. You are. For once in your whole pitiful existence, you just... _ are _ . 

You melt into Tavros’s hands, and let him take you apart completely.

Maybe it’s ten sweeps or maybe just ten minutes later, but his hands finally still, coming to a rest on either side of your temples. 

“That’s um, all we have time for,” he says softly. “How do you feel?”

Like you’re floating, you want to say. Like you’re flying, and nothing is going to catch you and pull you down. You manage the weakest of hiccuping chirps. 

“Ah, take your time getting up? It’s okay if you need to lay down for a minute.”

Tavros smoothes two fingers across the crease in the middle of your forehead, and it feels like a benediction.

You hear the gentle squeak as he rolls his chair away and you squeak back at it, unreasonably alarmed.  _ Don’t leave me _ , you want to say. Your whole body is tingling all the way into your teeth and you don’t know how you’re supposed to deal with it.

He didn’t even come near your horns, for fuck’s sake. You’re utterly wrecked, and he didn’t touch your horns at all.

Tavros’s voice is an ansible away, a fleet-echo.

“I’ll be outside. If that’s okay?”

When he leaves, he takes all the oxygen in the room with him and you can’t help it, you burst into a mournful, messy trill. You’ve been exhausted and hurting for so long you didn’t know you could be so still and what the fuck does it say about you that you’re upset to feel relief? 

Somehow you roll your sorry skeleton off the platform. Your lower limbs are so wobbly you barely believe they’ll hold you. You stuff yourself haphazardly back into your clothes, vaguely getting your shoes on the right feet. Every inch of your skin is still sticky with sopor but it’s not like it matters. You’re starting to realize these clothes were greasy fucking rags to begin with.

You just want to go back into the warm bubble you had. Is that too much to ask?  Where all you had to think, and feel, and do, was press against him and breathe.

How are you supposed to go back to being yourself?

Tavros is farther away from the door this time, at least. You don’t hit anything when you open it.

“Would you like some water?”

He’s got another little stoneware mug, cupping it gently in his massive hands. He passes it to you and it is two sizes bigger, real now that he’s not the one holding it. You stare at it, too fuzzy to imagine what you’d even do with it.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. Perfectly normal question. 

“Like I got hit by a four-wheel device,” you answer, perfectly snarky, only your chest hitches up like you’re going to cry, or purr, or something. You don’t know what your emotions are doing. 

“I mean, in a good way. It was good. Fuck.”

Tavros’s lips twist into a concerned frown. He takes a step closer, visibly drawing in a breath. Warmth pools into your lungs and you sway on your feet. It doesn’t hurt. It’s so alien that nothing hurts, but it’s so good. You can breathe.

You might be so wobbly that you’re tipping over, but you can breathe.

Tavros steadies you with a careful hand.

“Um, can you sit down for me?”

Sure you can. You’re the master of sitting the fuck down, that’s you. Your knees buckle beneath you and Tavros squeaks as you stumble in his direction

“Ah, not here!  Sorry!” he says, flailing frantically to catch you, and your weakness subsides like someone’s reached inside your posture pole and suddenly plugged back into your pan. Like someone’s turned off a switch.

Fuck you right in the lookstub, maybe you are sub-alpha intelligence after all.

“You’re a psion,” you realize all at once, gaping. A very subtle, but very effective one. You hadn’t even noticed he was influencing you, damn. 

Tavros goes very, very still.

“Uh.”

Belatedly you realize what a dick move that was, holy shit -- he passes normal, maybe he’s stealth at work. You spaz and rush to explain yourself.

“It’s cool! It’s cool. I’m not a drone.” The last thing on this planet - on any planet - that you would do is snitch. “I mean, fuck - me too, yeah?”

You tap at your glasses, showcasing the glow you can’t quite ever truly hide. You would almost feel bad for lying about being a burnout, except well. He gets to pass, so you suppose you’re even.

“Can we…?”  Tavros gestures nervously at the open door. After a second, you nod. You suppose if he were going to whammy you, you’d already be fucked. You’re just as vulnerable with the door open as with the door shut.

This is probably that shit they call ‘unhealthy risk-taking behaviors’, but since when has your life been anything other than a series of unhealthy risks?

Tavros pulls the door closed and leans against it. His prosthetic struts creak.

“I’m um, I’m not very good,” he says. “I can’t - I can’t read thoughts. I can’t control people. I mean, I wouldn’t, even if I could! Not like um, some people who are maybe, not the nicest people. I don’t want to be like that.”

“But you hit me with something,” you insist.

Tavros squeezes the back of one arm like he’s liable to rip it off. You can actually hear the bones creak.

“I can uh, feel things?  Like, if you’re hurting a lot, or. I can make people feel good!  If they’re having a bad day. Animals like me. I don’t know.”

Empath, you would guess, and an unusual one. Most of the ones you met in schoolfeeds were unidirectional receive-only, talking about how other trolls were ~feeling~. You don’t know if you’ve ever seen a bidirectional one this subtle.

“You can broadcast,” you say. “You know how rare that is?”

Tavros waves a hand at you.

“It’s just a little bit, usually. I don’t know what happened with you, er. I didn’t mean to get you so hard.”

He looks so fucking concerned, and you don’t think it’s his influence this time. (Maybe.) You stare at the block’s neutral grey walls and think of the waitorturing room’s whalesong, and it makes sense.

“I bet you don’t get too many yellows?”

Tavros shakes his head.

“Humans, mostly. And high-bloods.”

“Waders live in a literal bubble,” you say. “And humans are the stupidest shits the universe ever blew out its infinite stinking wastetunnel. You hit them with psi, it rolls right off. Use it on one of us, it’s a whole new thermal container of fish.”

“I’m sorry,” Tavros says. He bares his throat apologetically. “I didn’t know?”

You pinch the bridge of your cartilaginous nub like he’s making your headache worse, except you don’t actually have a headache. You can’t remember the last time you didn’t have a headache. 

Come to think of it, your entire body is just...relaxed, exhausted and loose in the most pleasurable way. The constant background ache of your muscles has transformed into low-level relief. You could sleep like this, maybe. For the first time in two nights, you think you could sleep. It’s enough to make you want to be kind. 

“Did you even take any schoolfeeds on psi?” you ask him. 

Tavros fiddles with that infernal string on his uniform. 

“Not as such, er. I may have skipped out on schoolfeeds. And homeworld. Uh.”

You dig around in your hoodie pockets, searching for a piece of paper or a business card or something. You find a crumpled McDonald’s receipt but no pen, so. Fuck this old-school writing-things-down bullshit. 

“Look, I don’t know much either,” you lie. “But I do know a guy who knows a guy, etc. You got a palmhusk?”

Tavros nods. He tugs an ancient brick out of his back pocket, at least six versions behind the current model and so scuffed up you could scream. 

“Gimme.”

You take it before he has a chance to think twice and swipe in your contact information, not your work alias, but one of your personal accounts. You also queue an install for the latest patch to CrockerOS, disable a bullshit feature that likes to eat 15% of his battery, and switch his ansible feed from the slowass public band to a fleet channel no one smart is using. 2^14 times faster connection, there, he’s welcome. 

“Hit up that address,” you tell him, handing his device back. “They can send you some tutorials. And for fuck’s sake don’t whammy any more trolls until you know what you’re doing. You’re going to get your stupid ass culled.”

Tavros hugs his palmhusk to his chest. He is watching you very closely.

“Is that what you did?” 

“Something like that.” You shrug. “Just paying it forward, I guess.” 

RX should be proud. For the first time ever, you used one of her sappy human idioms without laughing.

Tavros opens his mouth and then closes it, and then shakes his head.

“Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

You rub behind your left set of horns, a little awkward now. It’s strange not to feel the usual prickle of tension. It’s going to take some getting used to, feeling good. You hope it’ll last long enough to stop being a novelty.

“So, not to be a damp snuggleplane, but I think my kismesis is waiting for me. Something about seaweed claws?”

“Oh!  Right,” Tavros says. “Your package includes a nail treatment. If you’ll follow me? I can take you to the salon.”

He clanks his way back to the door, all smiles again, as if that heavy conversation never happened.  

Pauses.

“Unless...um. If you wanted. Only if you wanted. Would you like one ‘for the road’?”

It takes you a second to parse that weirdass idiom, but when the meaning sinks in, you nod.

“Why the fuck not,” you say. Why the fuck not. You only pupate once. If you’re going to get culled, you might as well go happy. 

Tavros reaches for your hand. When you take his, warmth flows directly into your veins.

“Be easy,” he says, looking right into your eyes. “Be still.” 

And maybe it’s priming, maybe it’s the power of your own anticipation, but the effect hits you double, triple-time as hard. Every inch of your body goes heavy and your eyelids droops. Like you’re in a cocoon, like he has wrapped you up. Like his arms are around you, and they’re promising you’ll never ever hurt at all.

“Be happy,” Tavros says, and you are, you are. “You deserve good things.”

“You’re not my moirail,” you remind him thickly, struggling through the haze.

Tavros smiles.

“No, I’m not,” he says simply. “But uh, you’re a good person, and you deserve to hear that anyway.”

You pretend the moisture in your ganderbulbs is just extra-abundant lubrication. 

After an aeon, the heat draws back, leaving you tingling and swaying once more. Tavros offers his arms until you can steady yourself, and then he carefully guides you through the door.

“Thanks,” you manage, light-headed.

“No, thank you. For the ah, ‘advice’.”

“It was nothing. Not like I know what I’m doing either.”

“It was everything,” he insists. “Although uh, if it’s okay for me to give you advice?  It might be safer not to lie. I don’t think you’re very good at it?”

“The fuck?” 

You peer at him blearily from the mess of your own bangs, vaguely pissed but too wiped to do much about that. Tavros beams back and taps the points of his own horns.

“When you are actually happy, you  _ glow _ ,” he whispers. “And it’s beautiful.”

And then you can’t speak, because you’re back in the corridor, back in the world of fish and humans, and a planet that keeps its time by its sun. Your moirail is 2^16 light years away and your kismesis is a squishy alien disaster, and Tavros isn’t anything to you (yet) but you don’t hurt. It counts for something.

You take a step back toward the waitorturing block, back toward reality.

You breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> The word 'civilization' in Sollux's quirk is proof that Satan is real. 
> 
> Also, it is 110% canon to me that Sollux listens to Deltron 3030. I will die on this hill.


End file.
